Ceiling project

The decoration of the ceiling of the large living room in Villa Claudinon was quite a challenge. As I knew I would show this piece in "Demeures peintes" my first idea was to "show off" as much as I could and I thought that a ceiling with figures would be great fro this!

Therefore I started studying different classical models in order to understand the way they are composed. I detected various formulas and I started to sketch my own based of figures I planned to borrow mostly from the end of the XIXth century ( as this is the time period during which the villa was erected). I did a few pen sketch and a color study. At some point I also tried to visualise it on Photoshop , and I forgot about it for a while. 

When I got back to it my vision had changed and I decided to propose something totally different to my client. I worked on a first ornamental composition... 

and eventually found some good documentation on Christophe Huet's ceiling in the Chateau de Champs sur Marne.

Full size drawing of the central pattern

View of the ceiling in the room.

During the installation.

The finished piece.

The second version of ornate ceiling was the one I showed my client for approval and this is the one that features in the book.

I love ceilngs with figures but I prefer the baroque ones. I think that if I had continued on my first idea I could have gotten trapped into a style with which I am not enough connected. I guess this second choice was the most appropriate, for my client, for this beautiful place and for me.